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S. L. T.

... as in Simple Little Thing.

For a good part of the day lately, the fishies have been more than happy to dine on an October Caddis pattern. But in mid-afternoon, when a mixed PMD and BWO emergence begins, they've mostly been selective to really small dry / emerger style patterns.

This Simple Little Thing consists of two materials, other than the tying thread. It is something like a fly I tied several years ago for the BWO hatch on a small tailwater in the Central Mountains of Idaho. But simpler.

This one is tied on a size 20 standard dry fly hook. The materials are duck flank feather and hackle to size. For the PMD I used yellow thread and dun hackle. For the BWO I went with a size 18 hook, olive dun thread, and grizzly hackle.

Strip a bundle of 8 or so fibers off the flank feather. Tie them in at the bend, adjusting for an appropriate tail / shuck length. Bind the fibers to the shank as you wrap forward to create a thread body.

Wrap the thread body a bit further forward than you would for a normal parachute fly. Then loop the tag ends of the flank fibers back to form the post / wing, secure them, and trim the waste.

Tie in the hackle and secure it to the lower part of the post. Take your normal number of turns to form the parachute, but instead of stopping there, use the 90 degree hackle method, taking several turns of hackle ahead of the parachute before tying it off just behind the eye of the hook.

Building a thicker, more tapered body is not necessary on the size 20 version, but makes for a better silhouette on the size 18 version. But slim works.

The fish were all over both the PMD and BWO models yesterday. And it was fun fishing small dries again after months of big skwalas, salmonflies, golden stones, hoppers, and fall caddis.